Something Delicate
by joudama
Summary: A sky she will never fear, and a dream of something that both was and was not...and perhaps sadder because of it.


Title: Something Delicate

**Title:** Something Delicate

**Fandom:** Final Fantasy VII

**Character/Pairing:** Cloud/Aerith, Zack/Aerith

**Rating: **Worksafe.

**Warnings and A/N:** I took the "dream" part of this from the Zack/Aerith first date scene. However, I played it in Japanese, and the scene I found of it on youtube to refresh my memory was in Japanese, meaning the translations of what they're saying might not match the official English version, since I did them myself on the fly.

**Summary:** A dream of something that both was and was not. And perhaps sadder because of it.

- -

"Have you ever met a SOLDIER?" Aerith asked. Her voice was young, and when Cloud looked at her, he realized she seemed young, younger than the Aerith he knew, and yet it was only a passing thought, because this was the Aerith he knew, the rose ribbon he had just given her floating as she spoke.

"...Maybe," Cloud said, hedgingly, having a bad feeling about where this might be going as he followed her into the empty playground.

"I wonder if they're happy," she said, her voice a little faraway.

"What do you mean?" Cloud asked, because there was something about the way she said it...

"All the children want to one...heroes, protecting the world. But, they're not normal."

There was a long pause, and he watched her, the lines of her back and the way she tilted her head as she spoke, her hair moving faintly. Safer that way, her back to him, unable to see his face.

"They've undergone some kind of special surgery, haven't they?" she said, turning to face him.

"Seems like," he said, gesturing a sad and feigned ignorance, his dark hair for a moment falling in front of his eyes, hiding her from his sight, and it seemed symbolic, somehow. He knew then, as things always did, that this was going to end badly, that Aerith's innocent light would slip away before he could even begin to truly come close to it.

"I think being normal is the best happiness." She looked away again, her words carefully chosen. "There's just...something _strange_, about SOLDIERS."

"Really...strange, hunh?" he said, his dark hair moving about his face as he folded his arms, unconsciously somehow trying to in some way protect himself from the inevitable. He couldn't look at her, not when he knew what was coming.

"...And frightening," Aerith said, her voice trailing off, full of a sad kind of emotion. "They just...love fighting," she said, her face showing that fighting was something wholly alien to her, something she couldn't fathom.

This couldn't go one, then. Cloud sighed, gathering his will, and put an end to it. "I'm," he said, turning to face to look at her, waiting until his hair settled around his face instead of framing the world in strands of black, "a SOLDIER."

- -

"I'm a SOLDIER," Zack said, his blond hair settling around his face when he finally went still. Aerith felt her eyes go wide as the shock of it, and of everything she had said, sank in, the way Zack didn't seem to be angry, or defensive, just...withdrawn, like he had nothing else to say.

"I'm sorry," she said, the words coming out before thought could really form them, realizing why Zack had gotten so quiet as she spoke, pulled away and into himself. He shrugged, a hand raising in a faint, "doesn't much matter" gesture, and Aerith wished she could take back the whole last five minutes, take back all of what she had said, that the feigned nonchalance of that gesture. Worse when he looked at her and then looked away when she looked up at him, expecting the worst and one hand nervously scratching at the back of his head, running through his blond hair as words failed. He had nothing to say, because there really was nothing he could say, and it was her fault. He lowered his eyes, eyes like she had never seen, a sparkling blue that took her breath away, and before she could think, "...beautiful," came out. Because they were, they were the most beautiful eyes that she had ever seen, and she could no more not say it than she could take back everything else she had said.

A tiny bit of his spark came back, and it felt _right_, it was the Zack who had fallen through her roof and later laughed, full of life once he got over the concussion. "My face?"

She couldn't help but laugh. "Your _eyes_."

Zack bounced over, taking the opening and running with it. "You like 'em? Here, take a closer look."

He crossed his arms, and the gesture was worlds away from the withdrawn gesture of before. He was back in his element, back on firmer footing and doing his best, in a way she began to suspect was purely his own, to make things right. "The eyes of someone bathed in mako. They're proof of a SOLDIER," he said, leaning in close and making his eyes wide.

Aerith leaned in as well, staring at his beautiful, gleaming blue eyes, and she suddenly realized how _close_ he was, how much bigger, and how...and how...

She pulled back, feeling a faint blush rising to her cheeks, and she shoved him away with a "Oh, honestly!" and pouting in her embarrassment and biting back a laugh at herself, and when he laughed, and it was all she could do not to as well.

"They're kinda the same as the sky, aren't they?" he said, fully expecting to be agreed with, even though he knew she had never seen the sky.

"Yeah," she said, her face lighting up a little, the awkwardness passing. "If it's _this_ sky," she said, and her next words were the absolute truth. "Then I'm not afraid," she said, staring straight into his eyes, the blue of the sky she had never seen before and which scared her a little at the very concept of its vastness; his hair the sun.

Yes. If it was this sky...she wasn't afraid.

Of anything.

- -

_And he woke beneath the tree where they had stopped to rest before heading north towards the Forgotten City, and he found that in their sleep, his fingers and Aerith's had twined together._

_She woke when he slipped his hand from hers, tears falling from her eyes._

_"Aerith?" Cloud said, voice soft, not wanting to wake the others; not sure what to do to her tears. He finally reached over and brushed at the damp trails on her cheek with his thumb._

_And Aerith smiled faintly, but the smile didn't quite reach her eyes. "Just a dream," she said._

_"Nightmare?" he asked, letting his hand drop away._

_She shook her head. "No. Just...a dream. One that should have been, maybe. And maybe a little sadder because it wasn't," she said, her voice soft; sad and delicate._

_He touched her hand, with his, for a moment. "Someone should be on guard. I'll go; sleep while you can," he finally said, unable to express anything with words, only with his eyes, gentle and vibrant blue shining even in the faint light of pre-dawn, and she thought to herself that his eyes, and the traces of Zack behind them, were a sky she would never fear._


End file.
